Abstract
Commercial production of hazelnut (Corylus avellana) in Oregon’s Willamette Valley is threatened by eastern filbert blight (EFB), a serious canker disease caused by the pyrenomycete Anisogramma anomala (Peck) E. Müller. The fungus also prevents the establishment of hazelnut orchards in eastern North America. Genetic resistance is considered the most effective way to control the disease. A high level of EFB resistance was first discovered in ’Gasaway’. This resistance is conferred by a dominant allele at a single locus on linkage group 6 (LG6). Resistance from several additional sources has been assigned to the same chromosomal region. In this study, new simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were developed for the resistance region on LG6 and new sources of resistance were investigated. Forty-two new SSR markers were developed from four contigs in the genome sequence of ‘Jefferson’ hazelnut, characterized, and nine of them were placed on LG6 of the genetic map. Accessions representing 12 new sources of EFB resistance were crossed with susceptible selections resulting in 18 seedling populations. Segregation ratios in the seedling populations fit the expected 1:1 ratio for 10 sources, while one source showed an excess of resistant seedlings and another showed an excess of susceptible seedlings. Based on correlation of disease response and scores of SSR markers in the ‘Gasaway’ resistance region in the seedlings, eight resistance sources were assigned to LG6. Linkage maps were constructed for each progeny using SSR markers. The LG6 resistance sources include two selections (#23 and #26) from the Russian Research Institute of Forestry and Mechanization near Moscow, four selections from southern Russia, one selection (OSU 1185.126) from Crimea, one selection (OSU 533.129) from Michigan, Corylus heterophylla ‘Ogyoo’ from the South Korea, and the interspecific hybrid ’Estrella #1’. These new LG6 resistance sources and SSR markers should be useful in breeding new cultivars, including the pyramiding of resistance genes. For the other four resistance sources (Moscow #37, hybrid selection OSU 401.014, C. americana ‘Winkler’ and C. americana OSU 366.060), SSR marker scores on linkage groups 6, 7 and 2 were not correlated with disease response and merit further investigation.
Highlights
IntroductionThe European hazelnut is widely distributed in Europe, Turkey and the Caucasus republics, but commercial production is limited to areas near large bodies of water at middle latitudes with moderate temperatures in winter and summer, and high humidity during mid-winter bloom (Mehlenbacher, 1991)
Markers developed from contigs 95F and 77F mapped to linkage group 6 (LG6) as expected, but markers developed from contigs 56F and 42F mapped to LG1
Unexpected LG assignments were reported by Sathuvalli and Mehlenbacher (2013), including simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers LG612 and LG613 developed from bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) 38N24, which mapped to LG1
Summary
The European hazelnut is widely distributed in Europe, Turkey and the Caucasus republics, but commercial production is limited to areas near large bodies of water at middle latitudes with moderate temperatures in winter and summer, and high humidity during mid-winter bloom (Mehlenbacher, 1991). These areas include the Black Sea coasts of Turkey and Georgia, areas in Italy and Spain near the Mediterranean Sea, southwestern France near the Bay of Biscay, and the Willamette Valley of Oregon, United States near the Pacific Ocean. Turkey produces 67% of the world crop, followed by Italy, Azerbaijan, and the United States
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